


fealty

by catalysis



Series: devoted [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Kinda, POV Second Person, Platonic Soulmates, Red String of Fate, lee's qpr kagehina agenda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 08:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26350066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catalysis/pseuds/catalysis
Summary: the golden thread tying you to him frays but it will never snap.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio
Series: devoted [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1941310
Comments: 9
Kudos: 44





	fealty

**Author's Note:**

> hi my qpr kghn agenda started with a single mention in [this tskym fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26215981) (shameless plug) and i could not stop Thinking, so here is the culmination of it. i love the red thread of fate mythos but not the romance. the thread i write about here is NOT inherently romantic for reasons that may become important later (depending on if i ever finish the sequel to this lmao).  
> 

You are his in every way that matters. He is the one who pressed the world into your hands. With the pads of his fingers, he gives you flight. Through the lattice of the tall, tall net, he is the only one you see. You love him more than anyone, and some days, even more than volleyball. Because without him, volleyball wouldn’t, couldn’t mean anything to you. 

He knows you better than anyone else. Some people only see the keen hunger you wear like a coat. Others dig into the heart of you to find the endless determination seeded there. More still claw deeper and flinch at the sight of your greedy, desperate core. He doesn’t care what everyone else sees. He sees everything, all of it, all at once. He knows that you can’t be separated into neat, tidy, digestible parts. 

In the bright, sharp, sad, sweet moments you can see the golden thread knotted around your fingers. Whether it’s your 254th win or your 1289th loss, it glimmers between your hand and his. So every time you spike a ball, it’s his as well, no matter if he’s right there next to you or 9500 kilometers away.

Separation is what works right now. But you'll come home to each other, eventually, someday. Somedays, though, the pull is almost enough to bring you back to him, and you know he feels it too, wherever he is. You think about meeting him in the middle, even if that would mean drowning somewhere in the Atlantic. But compromise isn’t what you and him do. It’s everything or it’s nothing at all. 

But you suppose that ‘nothing’ is unfair. ‘Nothing’ shouldn’t include the days he steals to spend in sticky heat, or the nights you steal in air conditioned museums. It shouldn’t include the way you carry him with you in every receive, every spike, every set. Or the way that he can’t help but see the shadow of the Icarus he made spreading behind every spiker he sets to. So maybe it’s more like you have nothing with glimpses of _everything_ in between. 

You think you get the closest you’ve ever come to everything when he and you stand in front of the world, against it on the same side of the net. Standing next to him is like digging your teeth into the sweetest, ripest fruit. It settles honey golden in your stomach. But you know you can’t glut yourself on it lest you become content. Your hunger is what drives you and you can’t ever lose sight of it. Playing with him satiates you, but playing against him? That digs the pit in your stomach ever deeper. When you stand across from him, you are Tantalus, never satisfied. Even when the aureate fruit of victory settles in your palms, it isn’t enough. It will never be enough. _Everything_ will never be enough, you think with a smile.

Sometimes you think it's uneven, the way that he possesses you. It has to be because he left you to go pro, to go to the Olympics. He left you for a whole new continent. But then you remember that you left him too. You left him to find yourself with your feet buried in gritty soft sand. You left him to play with his grand king. 

But even after you left him, you saw him flickering through the windows; you saw him reflected in his predecessor’s eyes. And you think that maybe, just maybe, he saw you too. Maybe he saw you shiny and golden in the copy of that poster you know he keeps folded up in the front pocket of his suitcase. Or perhaps he saw you broken and tarnished in the one and only voicemail you ever dared to leave him. 

But that doesn’t matter, does it? It can’t matter, not when he has you tied, taut and gilt, around his finger. The golden thread tying you to him frays but it will never snap. Still, sometimes, he tugs so hard that it pulls at your veins and nearly tears your heart out. But you yank just as hard in turn. You tug him to his knees so that you, loyal, vassal, can lay his crown on his head. 

He allows himself to be made humble by you. He graciously takes his defeat because he knows that he can’t actually lose. How could he when you are standing there, glorious with your own fiery crown on your head? The wins and the losses are yours and his and his and yours. 

He sees you when you’re flawless, cradled by a team you’ve grown into, soaring. He catches you when you plummet back to Earth with a simple ‘good game’ waiting for you in tiny pixels on the cracked screen of your phone.

You know his fear and his desire. Your tongue tastes their bitter syrup clinging to the back of your teeth like they're yours. Because they are. When he created you, molded you with his calloused hands, he carved out a piece of you and left himself in its place. That piece burns bright and sunbaked within you, glowing even when you can't quite see your golden string. He keeps that piece he stole inside of himself too, and you can see it in every move he makes. The passion it burns with embosses every receive, every spike, every set with a gold-foil promise.

You are his,  
but he is yours too.

**Author's Note:**

> let's be friends on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nyamayachi) :)


End file.
